Saturday, December 20, 2008

Rosen on Andrew Jackson's Military Tribunals

Deborah A. Rosen, Lafayette College, has published "Wartime Prisoners and the Rule of Law: Andrew Jackson’s Military Tribunals during the First Seminole War" in Journal of the Early Republic 28 (Winter 2008): 559-595. Although only Project Muse subscribers will see the article in its entirety, here's how it starts:

In April 1818, during the First Seminole War, General Andrew Jackson captured and executed two British allies of the Seminoles in Spanish Florida. During the months following the executions, Americans vigorously debated the validity of Jackson's conduct, contesting and defending the general's decision to deny Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister the rights normally accorded to prisoners of war. The extensive congressional discussion of the executions and the comprehensive newspaper coverage indicate that the incident was prominent and important to contemporaries. As the Boston Intelligencer observed, the public mind was "in a ferment" on the subject.